Why Advertising?

First and foremost, an important question is, how are you passionate about something that you’ve never truly experienced?

The truth is, you need to do a lot of research and ask a lot of questions about what you’re going into before you can even know the slightest bit. Of course, there are internships you can learn from… but you still need to do the work to get them, and it will be difficult without the slightest bit of knowledge.

We can guess what a career would be like, and we can fantasize and idealize. And for people wanting to go into advertising, we can dream about being like Mad Men and drinking in our offices (No joke, I’ve actually talked to students who think advertising is exactly like Mad Men).

But that’s not reality.

I started with a grain of interest. I knew that I needed to be creative in order to be happy. I’ve always found ways in my life to create something, whether it be YouTube videos, paintings, crafts, social media content and stories… I’ve just always had that passion. I also knew that I needed to be challenged. Sitting and painting in a studio all day wasn’t for me. I learned that quickly in university. I also had a huge curiosity for understanding human behaviour. Why do we act the way we do? What is the driving force behind our behaviours? These were questions that I asked myself every day, and still do. And lastly, I needed to be around people. Working in a collaborative environment was something that I discovered that I thrived off (I worked in a restaurant for some time, so working with people was like a recharge to my batteries).

I knew these things about myself. And I knew I wanted to find a career that would challenge me in all sorts of ways.

That’s when the networking began. I started off small. Chatting to people in marketing, sales and other careers. I needed to find answers. I learned what I liked and didn’t like. I then started speaking to account directors, and then this all eventually led me to creative directors. Soon enough, I got some pretty good advice from a creative director that worked at Grey at the time. By that point, I decided I wanted to go all in, and go back to school.